How Toyota came to revolutionize the automobile industry and become the world’s largest and most profitable automaker is a very big story, but arguably the most important single chapter is this Corona. It was the vehicle with which Toyota created a successful foothold in the US market, the world’s richest by far, and long the source of an outsize share of Toyota’s profits. Within just thee years if its introduction in 1965, this Corona vaulted Toyota from obscurity to the number three import brand. And that was just the beginning of Toyota’s huge impact on the American auto industry, which went through repeated convulsions thanks to this slightly goofy looking little car and its successors.

This Corona typifies all the qualities that Toyota came to be known for and made it successful. Although the name changed once along the way, when it transitioned to front wheel drive, the Corona and Camry are effectively one continuous evolution; fifty years of the same basic formula: reliable, economical, comfortable and trustworthy transportation. A very successful formula at that.

Toyota’s initial foray into the US market was decidedly not successful. In 1957 it showed its Toyopet Crown in the US, and in 1958, sales began on the West Coast. Toyota was proud of the fact that the Crown’s body was made of steel 50% thicker than American cars. Toyota’s quest for quality was there from the very beginning, but it would take more than a thick skin to succeed in the American market, although Toyota’s execs would need plenty of that to survive its first difficult years.

The thick steel made the Crown heavy, and its 1.5 L four made it underpowered for the freeways of California. It suffered from other issues too; it was just not designed and refined for American style use, as conditions in Japan then were very different. And the Crown was too expensive, costing as much as a full-size Chevrolet. It was the wrong car for the market.

Toyota had worked hard to establish a dealer network, but very weak Crown sales forced them to wind down car sales by 1962, and focus almost solely on the Land Cruiser while it re-grouped. Clearly a different strategy was needed, as well as more suitable cars.

The first generation Corona (T10) was introduced in Japan in 1957. It was partly a re-do of the previous Toyota Master, which slotted in below the Crown, and was powered by a 45 hp 997 cc ohv four. The T10 was not exported to the US.

The second generation (T20,T30) Corona appeared in 1960, and was called the Tiara in export markets. It was an all-new car and a big step forward, and addressed essentially all of the issues that had stalled the Crown. And in 1962, it was also sent to the US to augment or supplant the Crown. It was lighter and peppier, with a 75 hp 1.5 L four, and then even a 1.9 L four in 1964. And it was priced to be directly competitive with the VW, at $1613, despite having four doors, a much bigger engine, roomier interior and better appointments.

If it hadn’t been for Toyota’s near-death Crown experience in the US at the time, the Tiara might have gotten Toyota off to a good start. As it is, Toyota lost some $1.4 million in the US in these first few years, a large amount for them back then. Only 318 Tiaras were sold in the US, as Toyota mostly shut down car sales from 1963-1964. A vintage review of the Tiara is here.

But Toyota was not about to give up on the world’s richest market. For 1965, they stepped back in the ring, having healed their wounds and whipped themselves into serious fighting shape. The strategy was now based on the new T40 Corona. It sat on a 95.3″ wheelbase, was 162″ long, and a bit narrow at 61″, as Japanese cars were wont to be back then. To go along with the new car and sales effort, this time the cars were branded Toyota instead of Toyopet, and the Corona kept its Japanese-market name too.

The Corona was a very pragmatic and relatively conservative car, a reflection of the company’s corporate personality and traditions. And unlike many of the other Japanese manufacturers, who were contracting with the top Italian designers to make their cars look internationally competitive, Toyota went it alone. The Corona clearly was not styled by Pininfarina or Giugiaro. But its looks were inoffensive, and some reviewers back then thought it to be quite a well-styled little sedan.

Although quite small by today’s standards, at the time the Corona was unusually roomy and exceptionally powerful for its class, what with its 1.9 L R-Series ohv four making 90hp, about twice as much as the VW Beetle. The rest of the imports in its class all had substantially smaller and weaker engines; in 1965, the #2 selling Opel Kadett had 993 cc and 40 hp; the more expensive Ford Cortina had 1498 cc and 64 hp. The Corona instigated a hp race in the import class, and within a few years, all the competitors had to increase their engine size and power. But the Corona kept its displacement and hp lead almost throughout its run through 1970.

The R-Series four had been around for some years, and developed a reputation for being rugged and well-built. It was 1950s in terms of its design, with three main bearings, siamesed ports, and cast-iron block and head. True to Toyota’s roots in building licensed Chevrolet engines in the pre-war era, it looked rather like a smaller, four-cylinder version of a Chevy six from the pre-1963 era. The Toyota Iron Duke.

In a number of vintage reviews (here), the Corona’s engine comes in for lots of lavish praise. Although maximum power (90 gross hp) was made at 4600 rpm, testers found that it would happily rev to 6000 rpm. Given that the Corona initially came with a very US-style three-speed column shifted manual, the engine’s very wide powerband was not limited much by the lack of a fourth gear. 0-60 times in both reviews were the same: 16.7 seconds, a very decent result for the times (comparable to many six cylinder American cars), and outstanding in its field. A very highly-praised four speed stick shift was soon made available, and became standard after a few years. 0-60 times with it were between 14.8 and 15.5 seconds. Top speed with any of the transmissions was a solid 90 mph, and the Corona was praised for being able to cruise effortlessly at 80+ mph.

Speaking of Chevrolet, Toyota’s Toyoglide two-speed automatic was a well-done down-scaled imitation of the legendary Powerglide. Teamed with the wide power-band, high-torque 1.9 four, it worked better than might be expected, and made the Corona very user-friendly for Americans that might have been attracted to an import but were put off by the VW’s (and others) eccentricities.

What’s surprising in perusing the vintage reviews is that the Toyoglide seemed to have little impact on performance, as compared to the three-speed manual. 0-60 came in 17 seconds, and the Corona with Toyoglide was again praised, given that there wasn’t anything remotely comparable in its class, with automatics.

The Corona’s brakes also came in for praise, at least in its earlier years. Its front drums were 9″ in diameter, and made of finned aluminum with a steel insert, to dissipate heat better. Even after discs started to be seen in its class a few years after a few years, the Corona’s drums still gave better than average results, both in stopping distance and fade. Only the biggest Buicks used a similar finned aluminum/steel drum design.

Toyota’s advertising couldn’t resist playing up the Corona’s prodigious 90 hp in its class, although no one will ever accuse these Coronas of having genuine sports car handling to go along with the power. Nevertheless, in these period reviews, the Corona’s handling is generally held to be quite good to excellent, without the quirks that were common with the rear engine imports like VW, Renault and Simca. Given that the emphasis was on comfort, the Corona’s handling was predictable, safe, and better than the typical American car of the time.

The Corona clearly addressed a lingering concern Americans had with the lack of power in most imports, and VW and the rest all started boosting their engine sizes and outputs right about the time the Corona arrived. One could say that the Corona was a hybrid of sorts: import size and price, but American-style power and simplicity. A Chevy III, if you like, lacking GM’s design quality, but more than making up for it in build quality and other characteristics. Big finned aluminum brake drums on a Chevy II? You must be kidding.

The interior was decidedly more American than European too, with its bench front seat and American-style dashboard. It’s not hard to see why a whole lot of Americans went for this instead of a VW or a dreary stripper Chevy II or Valiant. The Corona only came in one trim level, and the standard equipment was surprisingly complete, at a time when the Big Three nickled and dimed Americans with endless extra-cost options. That was another key part of the Toyota strategy: no strippers, just a whole lot of car for the money.

The Corona and its marketing pitch resonated perfectly with American buyers, and as a result, by 1967 Toyota jumped to the number three spot among import cars (after VW and Opel). That was a phenomenal accomplishment in such a short time, especially after its terrible start. Toyota scrambled to expand its dealer network, which started on the West Coast, then focused on the larger metropolitan areas of the East Coast, and then worked its way into the heartland.

In 1968, the 1 liter Corolla (front) joined the US line-up. In only its second year (1969) the cheap Corolla ($1686, compared to the Corona’s now $1950), leaped to the number three import sales spot; an instant success. This is the full line-up of Toyota’s US offerings in 1968, which was the last year the brilliant but over-priced 2000GT was sold here. The Crown had rejoined the line a few years earlier, and the S50 sedan and wagon are here along with the Land Cruiser and Corona. Ten years after its failed start in the US, Toyota was hot. This picture almost perfectly encapsulates Toyota then, and now: popular, economical and reliable cars, and an ultra-high tech halo car (Lexus LFA, today) to let folks know that Toyota was (and is) capable of more than just bread and butter-mobiles.

The cute but stubby little Corona hardtop coupe joined the lineup in 1967, and became America’s lowest-cost hardtop. 0-60 in 16 seconds may sound like an eternity now, but that was comparable or better than most typical six-cylinder American cars. A Chevy Impala with a 283 V8 and Powerglide took just 2-3 seconds less. And today’s Camry V6 is virtually unbeatable in its class. Toyota understood from the beginning that Americans like a bit of ooomph in their cars. And that the great majority of them don’t expect world-class handling.

I shot this coupe in Portland several years ago, and I’ve just been assuming a sedan would come my way, but no luck so far. What a shape; who would have thought that Toyota would climb to the top in the fashion-conscious US with something as short, tall, narrow and frumpy as this (Actually, in its time, the Corona hardtop coupe was considered to be rather attractive, in a clean and unassuming way) ?

Certainly not GM, which showed Americans how stylish a small car could be. And how disastrously unreliable, rough-running, poorly built, and with mediocre space utilization. These two cars epitomize the different approach Toyota and GM took. And the results are…old history.

CC Cohort Foden Alpha found this immaculate sedan on the street in British Columbia; most likely in the Vancouver area. Someone obviously pampered this one, as it’s hard to imagine anyone restoring one. But then why not?

And this original blue sedan was shot by son Ed in Portland. It looks more like the huge numbers of old Coronas that plied the streets and freeways of LA back in the day.

I’ve had a bit of experience with these Coronas. My first ride in one was in 1967, when our bearded art teacher at Loyola High bought one, the first in Towson at the time. That was just about the time when these became more readily available in places like Baltimore, and I rode with him in it once when a couple of us in the class actually interested in art went on a field trip with him after school. It made a very favorable impression on me; it certainly felt like more car than the VW. No wonder folks were snapping them up. I would have heartily recommended one to my dad when he bought a replacement for his 1965 Kadett; the Corona would have been perfect for him. But he was not ready to buy a Japanese car then, or ever. Instead he bought a dour stripper ’68 Dart.

Toyota’s growth in the US was explosive; by the end of 1975, Toyota surpassed VW to become the leading import brand, a position it’s certainly never relinquished, and undoubtedly has no intention on doing so.

When I moved to Iowa City in 1971, the former Studebaker dealer wisely had picked up the Toyota line a few years earlier, and was doing a brisk business in this university town. Coronas and Corollas were already common there by then, and one of my girl friend’s dad, a violin professor, was already driving one of the first Corona Mk II’s, in this same baby blue. I drove that car some, and it was a nice ride; a bit more refined than the Corona, and had Toyota’s new OHC 19R-Series engine, which was smoother and more willing to rev. The four speed manual shifted in that typical Toyota way: like a hot knife through butter.

I can’t verify it, but my impression at the time was that the next generation of Corona (T80/90) was not quite as solidly built as its predecessor. Was the 1965-1970 Corona also built of thicker steel? And one saw the older ones more commonly in late years than its successor (above), which arrived in 1970. I remember seeing one of these already very badly rusted before I left Iowa City in 1976. But maybe it’s just a coincidence, or my imagination, but in my mind, these first Coronas were exceptionally solid and well built.

When I arrived in Southern California that year, old Coronas were everywhere, and could be had for a song. They were a great cheap used car, and obviously rust was not a factor outside of the Rust Belt. A buddy of mine picked one up for peanuts, and I later helped him yank the tired engine, which he rebuilt in the shop in the back of the tv studio. That gave me a good look at the inside of the old R ohv engine; looked rather a lot like an old Stovebolt Chevy. And it was about as equally easy to rebuild. He wanted the Corona for the long haul, and it served him well for years to come. It was a simple and easy car to work on, and all of it exuded solidity.

And I drove it afterwards too. By then, these were getting to be a bit out of date, and its steering and handling were…a lot like a miniature Chevy from the early 60s. Well; not really, as its trim size and light weight did make it feel like a sports car in comparison to a big 1964 Chevy, but it just had no genuine aspirations other than plodding along happily; year-in, year-out. No wonder Datsun decided the way to attack Toyota was with the very ambitious 510. Now that was a sports car in a sedan body, with its smaller but lusty 96 hp 1600 cc OHC engine and independent rear suspension.

The Europeans worked hard to sell Americans on their idea of how cars should be, based on European conditions and driving style, and their influence was certainly a positive one. But it also made their cars less palatable to the great majority of Americans back then, who were used to American-style low-end power, comfort and convenience, as well as the absolute bare minimum in maintenance and repairs.

Toyota didn’t come to the US with its own preconceived ideas about what Americans should drive; instead, they learned from their early mistakes, studied the market and gave Americans what they wanted in a compact car, and then some. It’s a wholly different approach, and the key to understanding Toyota’s success in the US.

And now, Toyota’s profits are greater than GM, Ford and FCA’s combined, although the yen’s weakness is a partial factor in that. Nevertheless, Toyota has disrupted the US and global auto industry more than any maker since Ford with its Model T. Everyone had to learn the business all over again, and not without a lot of pain (and bankruptcies). Will Toyota be able to maintain their lead in efficient production and reliability? And will buyers continue to feel that Toyota knows what they want? Let’s check back in fifty years.

75 Comments

I had a 71 RT80 sedan bought in Aussie where the bodywork didnt disolve like they did in NZ, thick steel? no not really and I crashed mine through a fence and into a cow, totaled the radiator and bent everything up front but it was still mobile I wrenched it all roughly back into shape and drove the car until the registration expired it needed some new panels to pass a pinkslip and none were available where I was so I sold it, A good reliable car in reality light years better than a beetle my Corona could hold 95mph indicated though any turns were scary at speed handling was never a Toyota strong point something they were regularly and soundly criticised for in NZ, but as a car those Coronas were great.

My aunt had one of those ’68 coupes. She was not the usual foreign car buyer, but she was fanatical about buying a few GOOD things and keeping them. And she was right.

I didn’t understand how GOOD Toyota was until a few years later when I tuned up a similar coupe for a friend. Pure epiphany. Everything about the driving experience was JUST RIGHT, and everything under the hood was also JUST RIGHT. No other carmaker had ever bothered to make life easy for the casual mechanic.

The early Corona nose sort of tracks the ’65 through ’68 Chrysler to no small degree.

I wonder what the early take rate was on automatics and factory AC. With American fondness for automatics, this alone seems likely a competitive advantage. The AC looks surprisingly well integrated – worthy of full-size GM products, and way ahead of virtually any economy class car – assuming it was even offered. With Toyota’s emphasis on starting out on LA, where it can be damn hot, this seems a smart move as well.

WIth the AC hooked to a four popper, I wonder how well it worked. The Americans wouldn’t attach it to less than a V-8 in the mid ’50s. Early non US AC systems were usually pretty bad. It will be interesting if the vintage review has any comments on this.

Another 1960s import in the U.S. that offered a fully-automatic transmission was the MG 1100 “Sport Sedan” and its successor, the Austin America. These were advanced (for the time) front-drive cars sporting fluid “hydrolastic” suspension and available 4-speed automatic transmissions. As far as I can recall you could not get factory air though.

Unfortunately the automatic transmission in these cars lived inside the engine sump and ran in the same oil. As one might expect, hilarity thus ensued and the success that Toyota found in the U.S. eluded the Brits.

Unfortunately the automatic transmission in these cars lived inside the engine sump and ran in the same oil. As one might expect, hilarity thus ensued and the success that Toyota found in the U.S. eluded the Brits.

Last time I saw an Austin America running was in 81, a very minty white 71, which had a different grill than the earlier models.

We do need to admit that, on paper, the Austin was light years ahead of the very conservative Toyota.

Putting the tranny in the sump was an Austin thing, also done on the Mini, Maxi and Landcrab, at least for the manual boxes. From what I have read, seems that special, dry British wit ensued with all of them.

The automatic in the Landcrab, and later, the Princess was an adaptation of the Borg Warner 35. I can’t imagine that BW let them run the gears, clutches and bands in the engine sump. I have been trying to figure out how they did it. The only clue is this exploded view of the tranny that sort of looks like there is a chamber cast into the tranny case for the engine sump, while the gears run in a separate chamber.

The automatic in the Landcrab, and later, the Princess was an adaptation of the Borg Warner 35.

The Austin America used an AP (Automotive Products) 4-speed automatic transmission that did indeed share its oil with the engine. In the U.S. most of them didn’t even make it through the warranty period without the trans grenading! When it happened out of warranty the cars were quickly junked, so very few remain. Here’s some info on the transmission:

The AP automatic transmission was also used in the Mini. Interestingly, AP also developed an automated dual-clutch transmission in the 1960s (I saw it in an old Popular Science or Popular Mechanics magazine) but I don’t know of its actually being used in anything.

It’s a shame, these were very technically advanced cars for their time. The Toyota Corona is like a tractor in comparison – but the Coronas didn’t self-destruct.

Old Pete

Posted January 12, 2016 at 3:23 PM

Leyland Australia fitted the Rover V8 to the BW35 in an Austin 1800. Just as a prototype, mind you. It must’ve been real fun being one of their engineers in those days!
To fit it in they lengthened the front fenders above the wheel arch where it couldn’t really be noticed. Sneaky – and it would give you a real fright at the lights.
Sanity prevailed (sort of) and they built the P76 instead.

Steve

Posted January 13, 2016 at 10:49 AM

Leyland Australia fitted the Rover V8 to the BW35 in an Austin 1800.

Austin 1800 as in an ADO17/Landcrab? Wow. Must have been quite a Q-ship.

Toyotas proved themselves as almost Hillman tough mechanically, not really a surprise when you consider the competition in Japan in the late 50s Datsuns were Japanese built Austins and Isuzu were building Hillman minxs under licence Toyota just built a competitor.

It should be noted that in the Mini/MG 1100 cars, the gearbox was in the engine sump even with manual shift — it was arguably a worse idea with automatic, but the automatic wasn’t unique in that respect.

In the early ’70s an MG 1100 was almost my first car. It as parked in the front yard of a vintage row-house in Alexandria, with a ‘for-sale’ sign, so My Dad and I parked to have a look. But no one was home. After several attempts to phone the seller, the car disappeared. It was a stick, but DID have AC – though It obviously was NOT factory.

The Corona offered bench seats well into the ’80s IIRC. And of course so did the first two generations of Avalons, albeit now split. Can’t think of many other imports that liked bench seats as much as Toyota.

I always liked those early Coronas and don’t find them stubby looking at all, although the grille is a bit tall and narrow. I think the RWD Corona soldiered on elsewhere after the Camry took its place in the US.

A friend lent us one of these to get to school; affectionally known as the cubic auto. Did the job, but it was a real menace with steering that pulled drastically to the left. In retrospect not roadworthy but when you’re young and dumb…

If the steering pulled to the left, than there was something wrong, like the alignment. I drove these, and while the steering was nothing special, it was quite adequate and comparable or better to the other cars in its class, and certainly better than what most American cars were sporting at the time, with vague steering that took six turns lock to lock.

What a fantastic writeup. I learned a lot. I was always a big fan of the shape of this Corona, but thought it was undermined by being essentially car bodies on the platform of Toyota’s pickup truck.

I had no idea the extent to which it was really a spiritual Chevy III. When Chevy went smaller that the Nova, they went two door only in the hope that young singles would buy it and it would have less sales impact on their bigger family cars. With union wages, small cars were going to be doing well to break even on them. We have heard about all the tricks to keep cost down at Lordstown.

With the place Japan was in during the 60s, none of those constraints applied to them. Copy the Superthrifty 4, copy the Powerglide, go ahead and add the four speed as performance fans have no bigger engine to buy. Use the need for foreign exchange and the still cheap yen to price at a place that makes the domestics cry. Throw in good execution of the Corona and watch the sales come in.

This puts a lot of context in the notion that I have had of the strangeness of America’s Galaxys, Impalas and Furys now being badged Camry, Accord, and Altima.

As I said in the article, Toyota’s postwar engines bore some similarities with GM engines, but none were direct copies. Don’t forget that Studebaker and Packard “copied” the GM (Cadillac and Olds) V8 to a roughly similar degree.

I still, to this day, miss the ’70 Corona Mark II 2 door hardtop I drove in high school in the early 1980’s. A time when it was not cool (for a high school student) to drive a Jap car, let alone a slightly modified one that showed it’s taillights to many Chevelles and Camaros.

It was around 1967-68 that these started to be seen in the midwest. The Corona and the Datsun showed up around the same time there. As a kid, I found them interesting, small like the VW, but as a sedan, much like a small Nova or Valiant.

My father explained to me that Toyota was kind of like GM in Japan, while Datsun was more like Ford. Because my dad was a Ford guy (and therefore, so was I) maybe this explains why Datsuns always interested both of us more. Knowing now how Chevy-like these Coronas were, my father was more right than he knew.

You raise a great point. Europe sent cars here and said “now you can be like us,” But Toyota sent cars here that said “we want to make cars the way you like them.” A big difference.

The latter is a very good point, exhibited also by PR. While European makes can get away with playing up nationalism (“German Engineering,” “Italian Flair,” etc.), the Japanese & now Koreans prudently avoid this given deeply-rooted Western racial fears in addition to memories of the Pacific War in Japan’s case.

Perhaps Western buyers just wouldn’t have a clear idea of what a car with Japanese characteristics would mean? “Inscrutable” is a word that used to crop up a lot in discussion of Asian national stereotypes, and national stereotypes seem to play into how we view cars from certain countries.

Even today, the best I could come up with if you asked me what Japanese cars were like would be “reliable”.

I have to say, as a kid, UK auto journalists frequently made references to the war in relation to German and Italian cars, and much more recently Toyota’s entry into NASCAR had people falling over themselves to mention Pearl Harbor.

Kiwibryce

Posted January 12, 2016 at 9:57 PM

NZs V8 super tourer series has Camrys competing amongst the Falcons and Holdens, everything uses a Chevrolet engine, same trans and Ford rear axle its only the exterior that is brand specific.

If you think it’s not possible to consume Japanese (or Korean) products and even be fetishistically obsessed with Japanese culture and still be racist, I am assuming you haven’t spent a lot of time lately looking at the American pop culture of the ’80s.

In the early ’80s, when an elderly family friend and WWII veteran asked me what new car he should buy, I started to suggest Toyota,
He said “No Way will I buy something Japanese. I used to shoot them before breakfast!”
When I asked him why he had a Sony color TV in his kitchen. He didn’t have an answer at first. Then mumbled something like “My wife bought it”.
He never did explain why he had a Sony tape-deck in his stereo-system.

Europe sent cars here and said “now you can be like us,” But Toyota sent cars here that said “we want to make cars the way you like them.” A big difference.

The Wiki articles on Toyota and Nissan say that both companies started by coping US practice. The first Toyotas were a mashup of GM and Ford designs and the 1930s Nissans were based on Graham Paige designs. So you could argue that the similarity to US design practice was baked in during the 30s.

I remember the criticism of Japanese cars in the early 70s was their lack of originality as all the Datsuns and Toyotas were designed pretty much along the same lines, just as the engineering of US models did not advance much from the end of WWII to the late 70s, while the Europeans were innovating with advanced powertrain and suspension designs.

I think it’s at least oversimplifying things to say that Toyota and Nissan were trying to cater to U.S. tastes. During the sixties, the Japanese domestic market was evolving rapidly. Between 1957 and 1966, the total number of passenger car registrations in Japan increased by a factor of thirteen and annual industry production increased a similar amount, with less than 20% of that going for export.

Cars like the Corona and Bluebird were not designed for the U.S. at this point; they were middle-class family cars, I think roughly analogous in market position (though obviously not in size) to an Impala or a Galaxie. As Japanese buyers started having more money to spend on cars, they started wanting stuff like automatic and air conditioning. I think there’s a parallel to be drawn with U.S. automakers in that Toyota, in particular, initially emphasized consumer-driven stuff (like air) over what people at the time would have considered advanced engineering, but the parallel doesn’t mean it was specifically imitative.

(Toyota did offer some ‘sophisticated’ stuff fairly early on, including twin-cam engines and five-speed transmissions — available on the Toyota 1600GT hardtop version of the T40 Corona from about 1967 — but they didn’t really get into bread-and-butter OHC engines or independent rear suspension until the late ’70s and early ’80s.)

Autoextremist Peter DeLorenzo wrote about Toyota’s efforts to not just become an American Car Company, but America’s Car Company. In many ways they succeeded because they were quite intentional and willing to listen and adjust.

Well detailed and informative article. Although I am not a Toyota fan, I was trained on a 1980 Toyota Corolla sedan with my driving school. Perhaps it was put through hell, because it drive like a piece of crap. Although, for a new driver, it was a good, handy size to learn to drive on. Here’s a pic that takes me back to that time. Wikipedia refers to this ones as “Fourth Generation: 1979 – 1983”.

But I disagree on the car’s appearance–I thought it was ugly when I was a kid, and I think it is ugly now.

But I remember riding in a Toyota Corona taxi (it was a 66-70—the ugly one discussed here!). I remember it because as a kid, thru the early 70s, I thought Japanese cars were ugly. In Greece, in the early 70s, there were few. VW, Fiat, Renault, Opel and other Euro makes predominated. People kept cars forever then, so cars from the 50s and 60s that were out of production–like Panhards and NSUs—they could be seen on occasion.

Anyway, I had a fever and my mother had taken me to the doctor. Since I was sick, we took a taxi vs a bus, and the first free cab was a Corona. “What an ugly car!” I thought to myself. Still, I wanted to go home, so I was happy we found a taxi.

At the time, we had a VW Beetle. But several of our friends and acquaintances had American cars. As a kid, I noticed the American cars were quieter and smoother than the European ones.

So, going home, I noticed the relative absence of noise, and it really impressed me! That era, typical cabs were Ford Taunus, Opel Rekord, Simcas, Peugeuot 404/504s, Mercedes 200. I thought this was the quietest and smoothest taxi–maybe Japanese wasn’t so bad. So, for the next few years, my opinion of Toyotas became “ugly, but smooth like American cars!”

I must be in a minority as I don’t care for these cars, either. But then, I don’t care for any 60s Toyota except for the 2000GT. IMHO, even the pickup in the 60s was ugly.
I could be wrong, but part of the reason why this generation of Corona looks a bit….odd is that Japan had (has?) government regulations that spelled out car dimensions, just as the U.S. did until about 1960-61.
I do like the following 2 generations of Corona and Corolla, too bad Toyota reverted to heavy handed styling the last 5-10 years. I am again also in a minority but I DON’T consider aggressive styling to be attractive.

Yeah, and their upper end Lexi look even angrier! I liked the RC when I first saw it on a commercial, but then saw one at an auto show and my opinion quickly changed. that ‘aggressive’ looking front end on the white example they had at the show almost looked cartoonish. The blue one on TV looked a lot better.

The Japanese regulations had a greater effect on the Crown; the Corona, which was intentionally smaller, wouldn’t have been directly against any of the tax class limits. The main thing that creates the visual oddity, proportion-wise, is that Japanese cars of this period tend to be narrow. I think that was dictated by Japanese roads as much as tax regs, but a lot of JDM cars of this period end up being about as tall as they are wide.

My mom and a 1969 Corona Deluxe when I was a kid. What struck me when we got it was how well it was built, far better than anything else I had seen. The bucket seats were covered with very high quality materials, and the whole car was just well put together.

Then my brother, in a matter of a week, burnt out the motor (we never found out how) and then rear ended a pick up, smashing in the front. Dad replaced the motor and did some rough body work, and my bother continued his work to kill the car. In fact, he never succeeded.

I’m wondering why it would be “hard to imagine anyone restoring one”? I wouldn’t, but the US seems to have plenty of Toyota fans, so why wouldn’t they?

One thing that intrigues me on this site is how often a 60s or even 50s car shows up in a state of relatively mild disrepair and comments pop up that nobody would bother to restore it.

I feel like in the UK if it’s old, someone will try to restore it if possible. (if it’s a car, not a castle)
I saw a magazine cover a few weeks ago describing a guy who had restored a Mini which had “literally” split in half.

The cars are appreciated, but haven’t really climbed in value on the collector market unless it’s an immaculate matching numbers original still with plastic on the seats. The coupe variants can be double or more in value over the sedans.

Interestingly, I have more curbside photos of this gen of Corona than any of the later ones; both immaculate and patinated.

Excellent article Paul. I never cared much for the styling of these but I do respect them for being well built and reliable. I also give much credit to Toyota for studying their target market well and delivering what they wanted.

Thank you Paul for the excellent summary of Toyota’s early years in the US. I don’t remember the Toyopet Crown at all — none likely made it to my hometown of Pittsburgh, PA. The styling reminds me of a miniature 1854 Plymouth, hardly an icon of beauty.

I do recall a dealer in a neighboring suburb that began selling the 1966 Corona in the summer of ’65, and a fellow pep band member having one of these (a ’70 as I recall) to cart several of us around to basketball games when I went to college in the Philly area.

So what small import did I buy in 1975? The all-new and innovative VW Rabbit. Wonderful car in terms of interior space, handling,and fuel economy. But it had so many problems and so many times refused to start at all.

My parents had a 1970 Corona 2 door coupe as a second car to their Caddy. They brought it new, right off the dealers lot. It was navy blue with a blue interior. I have to say, the car was sharp looking and made well. No, it wasn’t as fancy as our 1968 Sedan de Ville, but it was made well and with very nice level of materials. I recall the interior had a very thick and well wearing woven vinyl with smooth vinyl borders, which held up amazingly. The back seat folded down to create a good area to put your gear if only 2 people were traveling in the car. The car was a true hardtop as the back windows rolled, or I mean pivoted, down into the body. Our car was equipped with automatic, am/fm radio, and air. Being a second car, it didn’t rack up a ton of miles, but the car remained in the family a good 20 years with just routine maintenance and never gave any problems that weren’t easily repaired.

Unfortunately, one morning we woke up and found that the wheel covers were stolen off the car, as it was parked on our driveway (my brother got blamed as he didn’t put the car away when he returned home that evening). The dealer wanted a lot of money for a new set, so we tried finding a set at the local junk yard and of course, we couldn’t. The closest thing we found was a set from a Ford Pinto, which we brought and actually looked OK on the car.

In my memory is correct, the radio knobs were opposite of what our American cars of the time had. The one on the left was the tuning, while the one on the right was the on/off/volume/tone. I guess that was due to the fact that in Japan the driver sat on the right side of the car.

The car had a decent amount of power and did handle fairly well. I wish I had this car today, but it was sold to a friend of a friend, who’s husband needed decent transportation to commute to work..

While the vintage Japanese scene is thankfully alive and well, I dare say we’d see a good deal more of them if handling was just a bit better and they enjoyed something better than abysmal parts support, especially for the less common models.

I have never liked Toyota as a whole. There have been Toyota models that I have liked a lot(rear drive 80s vintage corolla), but in general, I do not like Toyota cars. For Japanese brands, I have always preferred Honda and Datsun/Nissan over Toyota.

My impression of Toyota cars in general has always been, and still is, that they are:

well built…BUT…
Heavy for their size
Slow and poor handling for their size
atrociously overpriced for what they are
poor fuel economy for their size(probably because of their weight)
greatly over-rated by the general public

I actually like the styling of these 1st-gen Coronas; perhaps I’m in the minority. Clean lines, not too much ornamentation, and a friendly “face”. The roofline on the hardtop is nice too, and somehow makes the car look much longer from a rear 3/4 view.

Paul, I think you may be onto something about the steel or build quality being better on this featured generation. I remember frequently seeing these T40 Coronas as a child in the 80’s, and they could be occasionally spotted well into the 90’s. This was in central North Carolina, so I’m sure not as many were sold here originally as on the west coast either. However, I don’t ever recall seeing the T50 Coronas, or really much of anything else Japanese pre-1975. So the T40 must have been made of sterner stuff.

I think it’s important to also consider the Corona in terms of the evolution of the Japanese auto market in the ’60s. Before about 1960, there really wasn’t much domestic market for passenger cars at all because not enough people could afford them. MITI got the idea in the late ’50s that Japan needed a cheap people’s car to encourage motorization, which Toyota tried with disappointing results in the first Publica. So, Toyota and Nissan tried to find a middle-of-the-road size/price range, resulting in the Bluebird and Corona. I think the Corona was essentially Toyota’s first really successful mid-market car for private buyers (as opposed to fleets), although the cheaper Corolla then became a much bigger seller.

I want to address again the idea that the Corona line was renamed to create the Camry, which really is not true. The FWD V10 Camry was conceived for the U.S. and took the Corona’s place in Toyota’s U.S. lineup, but both cars were sold in Japan, where the Corona line continued through 2001. They were not technically platform twins, either, although the Camry had its own ‘twin’ in the home market. (Obviously, they had mechanical similarities and shared some of the same engines, but Toyota considered them different enough to have separate chassis codes.)

Some Corona variants have seperate chassis codes from the regular passenger lineup My 1990 Diesel Corona wagon was listed under the commercials not the regular passenger Coronas, interestingly no service information could be found online or from Toyota NZ for it, the dealers will have nothing to do with imports they themselves dont bring in and info on the 2C diesel variety wasnt found anywhere, I had to remove and reseal the injector pump by guesswork no problem though it ran fine when I finished.

Well into the ’80s, I think most of Toyota’s JDM wagons were considered vans (and thus commercials), with different trim and engine choices. Japanese buyers didn’t seem to really get into wagons until the ’90s and afterward, even if Toyota sold proper station wagons elsewhere.

I don’t think the 1C, 2C, or 3C are very good engines period. They don’t produce much power and they ‘break’ easily. Rings fracture and cylinder head valve-seat lands crack. If you get 100,000kms out of one you have been lucky. They are also prone to oil leaks. If slightly overheated they will also die very quickly.

Although I have experienced the 1C and 3C engines personally, I would not want another one.

As a teenager, there was a cook in the restaurant that I worked at, that drove a 1968 Corona. With the Michelin steel belt radials this was a very good handling car… 1974.

5 years later, a shipmate in the Navy had 1978 Corolla, it was a very nice car, 5 speed stick. AC, side mirrors on both doors, rear defrost, and quality. I could understand why Toyota was gaining so much ground on the domestics.

I have a great respect for Toyota products. Being a GM fanboy that I am, I’m glad Toyota kicked GM’s butt and woke their old sorry asses up. competition is good. So are the GM products in my driveway.

It’s not hard to see why a whole lot of Americans went for this instead of a VW or a dreary stripper Chevy II or Valiant

Yeah, really, eh! Look at that dashboard and instrument cluster. In comparison it looks positively aircraft-spec. And Valiants and Darts never got in-dash ventilation ducts, just a tacky box sloppily thrown under the dash. That was if you ordered A/C; if not, you got a vent box above the left and right front footwells: crane down there, open the latch if it wasn’t yet stuck, open the door if its chintzy hinge wasn’t yet broken, and prepare for a shower of leaves and frass—dry only until the vent boxes began leaking rainwater. Yet somehow Toyota managed to spare its passengers all that, and craft a dashboard and IP (and door panels and handles and…) to an apparently very high standard without bloating the price of the car. Baffling, eh!

When I was small, in maybe the mid ‘70s, I had a toy car/track set which came with battery-operated Coronas from this generation (although I’m not certain if they were “regular” Coronas or Corona Mark IIs). The set was probably made in Japan, where these would have been considered a “typical car” at the time. I think I knew they were Toyotas, but I’m not sure if I knew they were Coronas. I vividly remember the styling of the cars, though. IIRC, the tracks were light blue, and there were two battery-operated Coronas, one of them a police car. I think there were switches in the tracks (kind of like railroad switches) that could be used to make the cars go in different directions. The set would probably be worth something to a vintage Toyota enthusiast today….

A while back, I came across a web site with a lot of historical information on Toyota in the U.S., including a link to a spreadsheet with year-by-year, model-by-model sales. Others may have been aware of this site – it wouldn’t surprise me if Paul was, and used it as a source in writing this article – but I hadn’t previously seen it.

Here’s what it shows for U.S. Corona sales. I assume these figures are calendar year (and the ’83 figure is just a few stray leftover ‘82s that were still sitting on dealer’s lots after the calendar had turned over to 1983).

The chart also shows 318 Tiaras sold in 1965, as Paul mentioned in the article. I’m not entirely sure what the relationship was between the totals for the Tiara and the totals for the Corona. The totals above are just for the “regular” Corona, and do not include the Corona Mark II. From what I understand, the Mark II was originally derived from (and had styling similarities to) the Corona, but was a larger car, and it eventually evolved into something completely different, ultimately being replaced in the U.S. lineup by the Cressida.

I’m struck that the Corona was a very important model for Toyota early on, but seemed to become less and less so over time. Its all-time peak in U.S. sales was in 1969, and there was a clear downward trend after 1973. By the end of the ‘70s it had become kind of an afterthought (in 1979 Toyota sold about 274K Corollas, 147K Celicas, and 128K pickups, versus 36K Coronas).

I am guessing that the drop in Corona sales in the early ‘70s was due to internal competition from the Corolla and Mark II, both of which were introduced in 1968-69, and both of which outsold the Corona in 1970. It wouldn’t surprise me if the 1970 Corona was positioned more upscale than the previous generation, now that the Corolla was on the scene as the entry-level model, which may have also put a damper on sales. I am surprised to see how much Corona sales stayed in the doldrums afterward, though, even as overall Toyota sales continued to climb. (After some initial strong years, the Mark II flamed out quickly, and the Corona overtook it in sales again in 1974; after that point, there was no strong-selling model above the Corona holding it back from that direction.) For all the success the Camry had after it replaced the Corona in Toyota’s U.S. lineup in 1983, the late ’70s/early ’80s Corona didn’t give it much of a lead-in.

Yep, it all started with this example of automotive whitegoods. The l-o-n-g pause at traffic lights while your Corona/Camry ditherer finally discovered that green meant pressing the accelerator pedal as if mashing it would end the world.
Stuck behind them as they ignore gaps one could safely fit a semi into. Worst car in the universe to be stuck behind. A Corona/Camry with a christian sticker on the bumper, a pipe smoking, hat wearing, and a 25/50 year member of a motoring club.
Get out and walk. Its less frustrating.

Great write up Paul! I remember as a kid the local Toyota dealer, one of the first in Connecticut, was right down the street from my aunt’s house. When I was around 10 my cousin and I were strolling the neighborhood and went to look over these strangely named funny-looking cars. Who knew.

I’ve appreciated practical, clean, simple cars for a long time. Though I remember being put off by these Corona’s sloped nose when they were new. Many years later, I got the chance to drive a ’69, with the Toyoglide and factory AC. I was very impressed with how well the AC worked and how peppy the car was. Especially when compared to almost every other similarly equipped import of the ‘late ’60s. I think my parents could’ve avoided years of aggravation if they had bought a new ’70 Corona, instead of the very trouble-prone ’70 VW Squareback Mom wanted at that time!